26 Jan How To Be Responsible In Recovery
Your recovery journey is about more than just staying sober; it’s about reinventing yourself by making permanent lifestyle changes that will help you be a healthier and happier person.
A large part of your recovery will include taking responsibility for your past actions as well as taking on new responsibilities. One of your goals during your recovery is to learn skills that will help you live on your own. Some of the skills you learn will help you manage your emotions and living space.
Managing your emotions may require you to analyze your past and own up to your mistakes and people you hurt due to your substance use. Taking responsibility for your actions will help you mend your relationships with others and grow emotionally. Learning to manage your living space requires you to take on more responsibility. You’ll have to take responsibility for taking care of yourself emotionally and physically.
Be Responsible for Your Actions
While you can’t change the past and undo an action that may have hurt someone close to you, you can make amends, learn from it, and move forward in your recovery journey. To make amends, you’ll have to take responsibility for your actions. This means acknowledging that your actions have hurt people in your life. No matter what your intention was, you caused this person pain. No one is perfect, and we all hurt people’s feelings from time to time, but owning up to our actions and taking responsibility allows you to grow from your mistakes and evolve emotionally.
Acknowledging your mistakes will also allow you to mend your relationships and hopefully gain more of an understanding of your past wrongdoings. When you give people an opportunity to forgive you, you’re also opening up an opportunity for you to forgive yourself.
It’s important to think about how your actions affect others in your life and notice negative behaviors that you might need to change to continue to grow on your recovery journey. The more time you spend learning mental health management tools and reflecting on your behaviors, the easier it will be to take responsibility for your actions. During your recovery, you’ll learn to acknowledge your wrongdoings without having negative thoughts and emotions toward yourself.
Taking on Responsibility
Maintaining positive mental health requires you to maintain other aspects of your life. For instance, your environment has a significant impact on your mental health, so you must be able to take on the responsibility of taking care of your living space. This may mean learning how to do laundry, wash dishes, vacuum, and clean the bathroom. It’s not just about learning these skills but also implementing them in your everyday life.
You’ll also have to take responsibility for caring for yourself. While sometimes it’s OK to rely on others, this isn’t always practical. For instance, you might feel a panic attack coming on while you’re driving a car or in an important work meeting. In these cases, you would have to know how to handle such feelings on your own. You can do this by learning tools to help you manage stress, anxiety, and depression.
Taking care of yourself also means valuing self-care, eating healthy, and exercising. Taking care of your physical health will have a positive impact on your mental health. You’ll need to learn how to cook healthy meals and create a schedule that gives you time for self-care while motivating you to reach your goals.
Managing Emotional Responsibility
Depression and anxiety spirals are sometimes inevitable when you’re feeling overwhelmed. However, knowing how to calm yourself down from emotional meltdowns and provide yourself with enough energy to make it until your next opportunity to discuss your emotions with a mental health professional will help you live independently.
You’ll learn to calm yourself down when experiencing intense emotions by talking with your mental health professional. Your mental health professional will recommend tools and coping mechanisms that will help you prevent extreme emotions from interfering with your everyday life. The more you practice coping mechanisms, the easier it will be for you to implement them in your life.
It’s important to practice these coping skills when you’re in a calm headspace so that you can concentrate on effectively learning them. This will help you be prepared for when you will have to use these tools in a stressful situation. Learning these skills will take time, so you need to be patient with yourself. Eventually, they may become second nature.